Confident Warner targets a happy return to Hobart

IT IS almost a year to the day since David Warner played the most character-revealing, and necessary, innings of his young career. Not the awe-inspiring 180 from 159 balls that obliterated India at the WACA Ground; not the similarly frenetic 119 from 112 that put South Africa's world-beating bowlers to the sword in Adelaide.

Warner's hundred in Hobart last December was a different beast. Painstakingly compiled and with his team's chances resting on his shoulders, the New South Wales left-hander spent more than five hours in the middle in his survival act on a wicket greener than his own Test career.

Happy hunting ground: David Warner on the way to his maiden Test century at Bellerive Oval last December. Photo: Getty Images

With an unbeaten 123 he carried his bat, a rarity for any opener, let alone the free-swinging Warner, but in running out of partners Australia fell just short, a seven-run loss to New Zealand confirmed on the fourth afternoon when Nathan Lyon was bowled by Kiwi hero Doug Bracewell.

While Michael Clarke's side left the Apple Isle with tails between legs, Warner could hold his head high. That innings, in only his second Test, proved more than any other that he was not simply the one-speed wonder his Twenty20 showmanship for Australia had made him out to be.

Related Content

Warner, 26, flies into Hobart on Monday for the first Test against Sri Lanka, starting on Friday, with happy memories.

''Obviously it was my first hundred and that was a game that I'll always remember because we were so close there at the end,'' he said.

Advertisement

''But it's a new game, a new series and a new opponent.''

A year on at Bellerive Oval, Warner has a different opening partner, Ed Cowan, while, coincidentally, his offsider from that humbling by New Zealand, Phil Hughes, is back in the Australian line-up for the first time since being dropped after that match.

Warner and Cowan have made Test centuries already this summer - in Adelaide and Brisbane respectively - and justified their places. The only missing piece of the puzzle has been a general inability to pile on runs at the same time. Warner says Australia's new-look top order, with Hughes almost certain to bat at No. 3 and Shane Watson to fill Ricky Ponting's shoes at No. 4, must arrest their reliance on Clarke and Michael Hussey to pick up the pieces.

''Me and Ed, we're in a good space at the moment,'' Warner said.

''They've told us where we are. We always look forward to batting with each other and we're playing down at Hobart, Ed's home ground.

''We've both had success there and we're looking forward to going out there and hopefully it's a good wicket for us.

''If we can get the most out of [Watson] bowling it's going to be fantastic for him to get that little extra rest if me, Ed and Phil can fill that spot up there and hopefully score some runs. Hopefully we put those 50- to 100-run partnerships on so the middle-order guys can get a rest and not just rely on Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey's fantastic form this summer so far.''

Warner is adamant Hughes, his former state colleague, will not be haunted by his own recollections of Hobart, when the second incarnation of his Test career unravelled at the hands of veteran New Zealand seamer Chris Martin.

''I spoke to him in Adelaide and he's been hitting the ball as well as he has been, he said. He said if he ever got the call-up again he'd be ready to go. He's worked hard in the off-season and obviously scored a lot of runs over in England and coming here and now being the leading run-scorer for shield cricket.

''We know what Phil is like. When he scores hundreds, he scores big hundreds, and that's exactly what we need for the Test team.

''He's a country boy, he's laid-back, he's always relaxed. I don't think he gets nervous at all. He's the type of character that comes in and he fits in straight away.''